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Wednesday, August 3, 2016

It's time for a journey through the CW Thursday schedule in 2015-16...

fall

Year

8:00

8:30

9:00

9:30

Avg

2014-15

The Vampire Diaries

The Vampire Diaries

Reign

Reign

37

2014-15

48

48

25

25

37

2015-16

The Vampire Diaries

The Vampire Diaries

The Originals

The Originals

34 (-8%)

2015-16

38 (-21%)

38.1409033945404

29 (+16%)

29 (+16%)

33.5639949871956

VsAvg

-22%

-0.223487884871763

-20%

-0.200059485497229

-21%

Rank

12/15

12/15

12/15

12/15

13/15

The deterioration of The Vampire Diaries continued full-steam in the fall, following up a -20% season last year with -21% this fall. It was joined by spin-off The Originals, which was a double-digit improvement on last year's Reign despite having somewhat disappointing retention at times.

winter

Year

8:00

8:30

9:00

9:30

Avg

2014-15

The Vampire Diaries

The Vampire Diaries

Reign

Reign

33

2014-15

43

43

24

24

33

2015-16

Legends of Tomorrow

Legends of Tomorrow

The 100

The 100

51 (+52%)

2015-16

64 (+48%)

63.504604/1519098

38 (+59%)

38 (+59%)

50.6320492562524

VsAvg

+33%

0.332797372485583

+6%

0.0645240599441974

+22%

Rank

1/15

1/15

5/15

5/15

415

The decaying vampire empire cleared out at midseason, making way for the high-rated launch of Legends of Tomorrow and a significant initial boost to The 100. This lineup more than made up for the fall Thursday struggles, and was a huge part of why the network as a whole was able to break even in Plus.

spring

Year

8:00

8:30

9:00

9:30

Avg

2014-15

The Vampire Diaries

The Vampire Diaries

Reign

Reign

28

2014-15

37

37

19

19

28

2015-16

Legends of Tomorrow

Legends of Tomorrow

The 100

The 100

37 (+35%)

2015-16

46 (+27%)

46.3411976243666

28 (+52%)

28 (+52%)

37.3304091974064

VsAvg

+11%

0.106718477800018

-12%

-0.120442786590682

+1%

Rank

7/15

7/15

11/15

11/15

8/15

Both shows lost quite a bit of steam in the second half of their seasons, but were still big enough for massive year-to-year timeslot improvements.

The Vampire Diaries: The CW's magical Friday mojo helped make the vampire shows look more respectable when they pulled similar ratings after a Friday move. The -21% in Plus for TVD in the fall is the closest thing to an apples-to-apples we really have with either show, and made it clear the show was still in a rapid decline. Grade: D.

Legends of Tomorrow: It was the third wheel in DC's superhero empire (and may become the fourth wheel when Supergirl arrives). But there's a wide gap between the superhero shows and almost everything else on the network, and Legends was still strong enough for a fall return in the same timeslot.

The Originals: Unlike TVD, Originals doesn't really have any "fair" comparisons, since it was moved to Thursday and joined up with TVD in the fall. It was only about -7% in Plus comparing fall 2014 (on Monday) with fall 2015 on Thursday, but the move still didn't help as much as it seemingly could/should have. However, it seemed to get a little better retention-wise after the Friday move, so I'll give it the slight edge over TVD grade-wise. Grade: D+.

The 100: I thought this show would settle at a consistent 0.4 after just a couple weeks. It ended up getting to that point, but it took almost two months instead. So I'd consider the season a win overall, but most of the win part was front-loaded. Grade: B.

The names in this last table link to the shows' War of 18-49 pages. Links with an asterisk(*) have been updated with the new info. Updates to younger shows will come later in the summer.

Check back tomorrow for this day's new Schedules Plus! Till then, you can refer to the old version.